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Wednesday, March 20, 2013

#58: What Makes the Collectible?: Tomb Raider vs. Assassin's Creed

When the
new Tomb Raider reboot was being announced, I had initially dismissed
the entire thing out of hand because I have been disappointed by
prior Tomb Raider games. Without going into much detail (and more
importantly, to avoid spoilers since the game came out not too long
ago), I was pleasantly surprised by the solid gameplay from the team
at Crystal Dynamics and excellent narrative penned by Rihanna
Pratchett. One particular element that impressed me was how
inoffensive and, dare I say, fun the collectibles were to gather in
this game. In the past, I have rallied against collectibles in other
video games, most recently and most notably Assassin's Creed 3. It
crossed my mind that analyzing exactly why one game's collectibles
intrigue me while another game's collectibles repel and disgust me
may be worth writing an article for, so it became the topic of this
week. Since I am talking about only the collectibles in Tomb Raider,
I promise to keep discourse on it spoiler-free, since people are
still finishing it up.

One of
the first things that might explain why the collectibles in Tomb
Raider were much better than those in Assassin's Creed 3 is that it
makes more sense for Lara Croft to want to collect the items she
comes across than it does for Connor to. The lead of Assassin's Creed
3 was focused on murdering Templar agents in pursuit of a better
world. Because of this, it made little sense for him to spend his
time running around the city to collect pages from Benjamin
Franklin's Almanac's, scouring the forest in pursuit of eagle
feathers, or going around breaking into chests located throughout the
world. With the possible exception of the Peg-Leg trinkets (and even
that is running on a pretty weak case in my honest opinion), all the
collectibles do not really tie in to the character or the narrative.
They seem completely superfluous and only exist for the sake of
having them.

This is
not true for Lara Croft in the Tomb Raider. Much of what the game
lets players collect would make perfect sense for Lara to take the
time to gather. Since she is in the middle of a survival situation,
it would make sense for her to want to gather salvage and weapon
parts from the area. Another easy to explain collectible are all of
the various artifacts Lara can find. While some might say that it
makes little sense to want to look for these kinds of artifacts in a
survival situation, Lara is an archeologist by trade, inherently
interested in objects that detail the kind of experiences and lives
people on the island would have led. Even in the story, there are
several times during the course of the plot where Lara takes a break
in order to examine whatever tomb or vestige of the past that she
currently occupies. This curiosity of her's extends to collecting the
journals left behind by the
many inhabitants of the island, both past and present, that players
can gather. As someone who studies people and culture, documents of
any kind are of intrinsic value to Lara. While it may not be
necessarily true for all collectibles, in the general case Lara Croft
would have a good reason to collect most of the optional items in the
Tomb Raider reboot.

The
second reason Tomb Raider has, in my opinion, better collectibles is
that players have a better external, in-game motivation to collect
them. In Assassin's Creed 3, a lot of the things players could
collect did not have much worth in terms of rewards for collecting
them. Gathering up all of the eagle feathers scattered throughout the
Frontier merely unlocked a Native American tribal garb that visually
was not very impressive or distinctive in any way. Another solid
example of a lack of rewards are the Almanacs. When Connor finishes
collecting a set of Almanac's, they unlock a blueprint for one on
Benjamin Franklin's inventions which can be crafted at Connor's
Homestead. While this seems like a big deal, the inventions are
static objects with no other purpose but to decorate the Homestead,
conferring no practical benefits to players. Lastly, the treasure
chests do offer material rewards, but I can hardly call them
particularly beneficial. What I mean is that chests contain
materials, recipes, and money which can all be used in different ways
to take advantage of the in-game economy. As I have mentioned in my
critique
of Assassin's Creed 3, the in-game economy has no real use to players
and can be skipped entirely without suffering for it or losing
anything that one might get by participating in it. If the chests'
rewards feed into a worthless add-on, it can be said that they are
also worthless add-ons.

When
contrasted that with Tomb Raider, this lack of rewards becomes even
more glaringly obvious. Everything that can be collected in the game
confers at least some sort of reward. Performing any task, even
collecting an object, gives the player XP which are used to get skill
points that can be spent to unlock new talents and passive skills for
Lara, giving players an extra edge against enemies and the
environment. In this way, Tomb Raider already offers more practical
rewards than Assassin's Creed 3 ever did, but that is not the only
way they reward players. One of the most commonplace and ubiquitous
collectibles in the game is “Salvage.” Salvage is like XP in the
sense that players can spend salvage to upgrade the weapons Lara
finds over the course of her adventure. Each weapon can be upgraded
with a limited selection of upgrades. This is where another, slightly
less prominent collectible comes in: The weapon parts. Weapon parts
come in different categories: bow, pistol, rifle, and shotgun. When
the player collects enough parts in a given category, Lara will
upgrade the corresponding weapon to a stronger version of itself
(with all current upgrades transferring over) when the player reaches
a campfire. Upgrading a weapon improves its abilities and unlocks
more upgrades which players can use Salvage to unlock. Tomb Raider
actively rewards those who take the time to explore and hunt for
these collectibles. This makes the process far more enjoyable, even
if it is partly due to a Skinner
Box-like effect.

This is
not the only way in which players get rewarded by what they do. Games
can offer more for collecting than simple gameplay benefits. Another
way in which Tomb Raider has better collectibles is that collectibles
can also further develop the characters and setting of the game. When
Lara finds an artifact and picks it up, she gives players a brief
description of what it is and what significance it has. These
artifacts can tell us a little about past civilizations and people
that have landed on the island and lived there for long stretches of
time. It helps players understand exactly how many people have been
impacted by the island and its many secrets, working as a form of
world building. Also, as an archeologist, Lara does not just
magically know everything about a given artifact. There are many of
them in the game that players can rotate around to a specific angle
to learn additional information. One example in particular stands out
to me: In one area, Lara can find a small dragon statue, making the
remark that it looks like a priceless antique. If one rotates it so
that the bottom faces the camera, she will say “Oh! It's a fake.
'Made in China'”. Other examples just help to bring players into
the world and the role of Lara Croft.

As I
said earlier, the characters are also developed through collectibles,
not just the world. This comes in the form of all the logs and
journals players can track down. Whenever the player grabs a journal,
the character who wrote it narrates the text for the player. This can
best be equated to the audio logs made famous by games such as System
Shock 2 and its spiritual successor, Bioshock. There is a reason why
this often works: It allows the player to learn more about a
character and what makes them tick without needing to write up an
entire conversation and animate it. Without spoiling anything, these
logs make the characters more relatable and understandable. Combined
with the artifacts, they also enable much more world building than
either could alone. By collecting these items, the island and the
people on it feel like a fully fleshed out world, and there lies the
beauty in the way Tomb Raider handled them. I would try to find a
comparable example from Assassin's Creed 3, but I do not believe one
such example exists.

Lastly,
the final reason I liked Tomb Raider's collectibles a lot more is
because they are generally more challenging to get. Let me preface
this by saying that in both games, all the collectibles are
comparatively easy to find. Even if players have difficulty doing so
normally, there exists ways players can make discovering the location
of collectibles easier: Assassin's Creed 3 has maps which Connor can
purchase to point out the location of every collectible in the game,
while Tomb Raider allows Lara to upgrade her “Survival Instincts”
(similar to Batman's Detective Mode in Arkham City), to highlight
them and place them on the map when they are in range. (For the
record, that is a good thing.) However, once the collectibles are
located, getting to them is different in both games. In Assassin's
Creed, it is typically pretty easy. Once Connor is roughly aware of a
collectible's location on the map, it is a trivial task for him to
get to it with the usual set to traversal mechanics. This is not the
case in Tomb Raider. While some are certainly easy to get, many of
them will take a degree of problem solving to reach. At other times,
it is not even possible to collect a given treasure until a certain
piece of Gear has been acquired allowing Lara to bypass an obstacle
in her way, like classic Metroidvannia-style games. Having to
actually bypass an obstacle by oneself to get a treasure, without the
game doing excess hand-holding or making it too easy, gives a feeling
of satisfaction that is otherwise absent, making the act of picking
up a collectible all the sweeter.

In the
end, Tomb Raider managed to do the impossible: It caused me to
rethink my stance on collectibles in video games and give them the
illustrious title of “Not inherently bad.” The only thing that
has been able to remove itself from my shit-list in such a way is the
Quick-Time Event. I am glad this game caused me to reevaluate my
thinking, because for a long time collectibles were one of the
fastest ways games could irritate me. It all started with those
abominable feathers in Assassin's Creed 2 which were so annoying to
gather up and for such an insignificant payoff. Nonetheless,
collectibles are just another tool in a designer's arsenal to use and
balance wisely. Like any tool, there are times where it works and
times where it does not. A designer's responsibility is to know the
difference.